Hollow Words

The level of gullibility of the American voters assumed by President Trump never ceases to amaze me. While we are all astutely aware of his penchant for bending the truth in many of the statements made in his daily tweets, his reactive comments made about societal tragedies, which are becoming more and more rampant in our society, are without doubt the most blatant examples of his untruthfulness.

After this week’s tragedies at El Paso and Dayton, both of which are being labeled as a form of “domestic terrorism,” President Trump stated, “The first lady and I join all Americans in praying and grieving for the victims, their families and the survivors. We will stand by their side forever; we will never forget. These barbaric slaughters are an assault upon our communities, an attack upon our nation, and a crime against all of humanity.”  He also vowed to give federal law enforcement "whatever they need" to fight domestic terrorism.  These comments come as the threat of right-wing extremism continues to grow.  The Center for Strategic and International Studies found that attacks by far-right perpetrators more than quadrupled between 2016 and 2017.

However, while the president was pledging to counter this problem, the federal government under his watch has actually cut the resources needed to tackle this issue.  A division of the Department of Homeland Security is charged with handling the prevention of domestic terrorism.  Two years ago this division was comprised of 16 full time employees and 25 contractors with an operating budget of approximately $21 million.  Today there are no contractors, eight full-time employees, and an operating budget of $2.6 million.  Basically now all that exists is, “some very dedicated government employees still at the office dealing with terrorism prevention and just trying to keep the lights on.”

The other fact that our President failed to relay to the American public is the reluctance of the FBI to pick up the slack left by the defunding of this DHS division. This is because as Dave Gomez, a former FBI supervisor who oversaw terrorism cases noted, "There's some reluctance among agents to bring forth an investigation that targets what the president perceives as his base.  It's a no-win situation for the FBI agent or supervisor.”

Further hindering Trump’s promise to fight and prevent domestic terrorism is the Trump administration’s desire to focus specifically on Islamic extremism versus all violent ideologies, coupled with the DHS systematically shifting resources away from programs aimed at combatting far-right and white supremacist groups. In fact, according to data from the Brennan Center for Justice, of New York University School of Law, at least 85% of "Countering Violent Extremism" monies are expended overtly on target minority groups, including Muslims, LGBTQ Americans, Black Lives Matter Activists, immigrants, and refugees.

So while our president talks about rooting out and ending all domestic terrorist atrocities within our country, he is really only interested  in vigilantly monitoring his bias-defined list of groups and continues to allow right wing extremist such as “white supremacy/nationalists” to fly under the radar.

Just how dumb does President Donald Trump think we are?  It’s time for the President to step up, stop worry about his support base and truly target all domestic terrorists in our society.